MenuPerhaps you’re familiar with this verse. Maybe you even have it printed or posted or embroidered on something in your home. But which day is it talking about? A perfect spring day?
Psalm 118 is appointed for Palm Sunday. It begins with a famous call to give thanks: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!” It calls on God’s people 3 times to announce: “His steadfast love endures forever!”
This psalm reminds us 3 times that God is on our side: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” It invites us to shelter in the Lord: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” It assures us 3 times that “in the name of the Lord” the earthly enemies of God’s people will be cut off.
Reminiscent of the victory song of Moses and the Israelites at the Red Sea, the psalm points to the victory won by the Lord’s valiant right hand: “The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation (Hebrew: LI-YESHUA).”
After recognizing the Lord’s chastening, “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death,” the psalm depicts the ritual approach and entry of the priests or Levites to the temple, approaching the Lord – the One who declares righteousness through the sacrifice connected to the coming Messiah: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous enter through it. I thank You that you have answered me and have become my salvation (Hebrew: LI-YESHUA).”
Immediately follows the unexpected cornerstone – the unlikely foundation on which the building depends – a foreshadowing of the Messiah whom God would send through Israel: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!”
Then, a prayer for salvation: “Hosanna (please save us), we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!” and finally, entry into the temple: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God and he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!”
On Palm Sunday, Jesus is that sacrifice, coming in the name of the Lord to Jerusalem for just that purpose – so that after His sacrifice the Father would declare us to be righteous.
Palm Sunday leads us inexorably to Good Friday, when our Messiah, Jesus, bore our sins to the cross to atone for every last one of them. The days of Holy Week, as we trace the passion of Jesus through Holy Thursday and even Good Friday are necessary – necessary for us to enter through the gates of righteousness. And if our gladness and our rejoicing are muted on Good Friday, it’s only because we see the actual cost of His love for us. The blood shed by Jesus opens to us the gates of righteousness, that we may enter and rejoice.
And yet it makes only that much sweeter the unrestrained rejoicing and gladness of the day that follows – the day of Resurrection!
“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”
Paschal blessings to you and yours,
Rev. Jeff Nickel
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Clarence